Emotion regulation skills can help us learn how to manage the way we feel and cope in situations. Breaking the cycle can start a change in our emotional responses.
Areas which Dialectical behaviour therapy focus on:
Identify emotions
Identify obstacles to changing emotions
Reduce vulnerability to ‘emotion mind’
Increase positive emotional events
Increase mindfulness to current emotions
Take opposite action
Apply distress tolerance techniques
Story of emotion:
This skill is used to understand what kind of emotion you are feeling
Prompting event – What event triggered or lead to your emotional response?
Interpretation of the event – What was your thought or interpretation about the event? Can you see how the interpretation has linked to the emotion? It is often the way we interpret an event that causes the emotion, not the event itself.
Body sensations – has your facial expression changed? Are you sweating, muscles tightened in certain areas of your body, temperature change? Has your stomach gone queasy?
Body language – what is your body saying to others? Are your arms crossed, are you clenching your fists?
Action urge – what does this emotion make you want to do? For example to flee, flight or hide?
Expression and communicate – we need to express our emotion. What are we saying? What is your facial expression and what behaviours are we doing? What are we trying to express to others? Remember as well as these, things may not be easily interpreted by others and can be misread.
Emotion name – what is the emotion?
PLEASE MASTER
PLEASE –
Physical iLlness – See your GP if you have physical problems
Eat healthily - Eat well and in moderation
Avoid mood altering substances – these can make your emotional state more unpredictable
Sleep - Get a regular sleep pattern of around 8 hours
Exercise – Try to do something active once a day. It will help raise your endorphins which aid in improving mood
MASTER –
Plan to do something which gives you a sense of achievement and ability. This will help increase your confidence and create positive evidence to use with your wise mind.
Opposite emotion – When you experience an emotion which is not justified in the situation try to behave in the opposite way to what you would usually. This will train you to feel and respond in a more healthy way in the future.
Emotion Action urge Opposite action
Fear Run away/avoid Approach
Anger Attack Gently avoid, be kind, see other’s perspective
Sadness Withdraw Be with others, increase activity
Primary and secondary emotions
The emotion we feel after an event may not be the original feeling we experienced. Secondary emotions are for example, feeling shame because you felt angry and feeling angry because you felt scared. It is best to try and work back to the original emotion so that you are able to work through the problem.
Letting go of the emotional suffering
Observe and experience your emotion, accept it, then let it go. Try not to make a judgement on the emotion as it could lead you to feel a secondary, third etc., emotion in addition. Using radical acceptance can help with this.
List of just a few emotions –
Anger, frustration, fear, guilt, disgust, anxious, sadness, depression, empty, despair, lonely, happy, excited, energetic, manic.
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